Diciembre

Hard to believe that it's already December once again. It seems like just yesterday we were talking all about the initiative, El es la Dadiva, (He is the Gift) and now it's Ha nacido un Salvador (A Savior is Born). Crazy how quickly time flies. Also of note, the cambios (transfers) were this week, meaning that my old companion, E' Solano, is already home. I am still here in Montero, and my new companion is E' Cubillos.

 

A little about E' Cubillos; he is from Chile, from a city called Copiapó. If no has heard of said place, it's OK, no one around here has either. I'm told that it's close to the mine where 33 miners got trapped, for a little point of reference. (I'm also told that a semi-distant uncle of E' Cubillos was one of the 33) E' Cubillos has been in the mission for 9 months, and spent all the rest of his time in a ward called Campa Rosa of the Bajio Stake. He is also shorter than me. (woo!) As an interesting point of note, Chilenos are not the most well-liked people in Bolivia, because of a small conflict where Bolivia lost territory connecting the ocean con Bolivia. This part is known as Antofagasta in Chile, but La Libertad (or la Litoral) in Bolivia. Luckily in Santa Cruz it isn't as hardfelt, but it is still interesting to see the reactions of the people when they learn my companion is from Chile.

 

In terms of a day-for-day playback, Monday we went out to a cabin-house (for lack of a better term) in the jungle for a little zone activity. Photos are coming. We were then working normal in the evening when we got a call from the AP telling us to do cambios (transfers) a day early, o sea (that is), Tuesday in the morning. As such, we had to quickly print out the changes and prepare for the next morning.

 

The changes were, luckily, pretty calm this time, with almost everything being down quickly Tuesday morning. We really only had to take 3 missionaries to one point and pick up 5 from the same place and bring them to Montero. We were then able to proselyte the rest of the day. We were in trio with E' Solano, E' Cubillos and I because E' Solano wasn't needed until Wednesday in the morning. We let e' Solano give his last farewells a some families and returned home to let him pack his bags.

 

Wednesday morning we took E' Solano and let him free in the office so we could return home and work normally. Most of the day was used to help E' Cubillos conocer (learn) the area, but we also visited with many people. Thursday morning we had to take an Elder to the airport so that he could fly out to his new area. While their, I learned that E' Quispe and E' Gunderson, 2 of my old companions, were going to be the new ZLs in Riberalta, a zone in Beni. As we were dropping off extra stuff in the office, we ran into E' Solano and the other Elders that were finishing their missions, and they caught a ride with us back to Montero to give some more Farewells, since they had all spent some time in Montero. Unfortunately we didn't make it to our district meeting.

 

Just when it looked like we would have a normal morning so we could study for the first time since last Saturday, we got a call telling us about the inevitable imigrations that I have to do for Friday morning. As if that wasn't fun enough, we had to be in the middle of Santa Cruz at 6 de la mañana. (in the morning) To make things even better, We got a call from the AP while we were in line telling us about an emergancy transfer in our zone. What fun. Luckily everything worked out as we finished imigrations and got the Hnas (sisters) where they need to be without problem, and returned to Montero to continue working normally.

 

Saturday we were finally able to study normal. We also found some service to do cleaning out some rocks and dirt. We found many interesting bugs and even some small snakes. It was pretty cool. (Nothing bad happened mom, don't worry!) We spent the rest of the day pretty relaxed since it cooled down a lot and there was plenty of cloud coverage. It rained in the night, not surprisingly. Sunday was really cold in the morning, but gradually warmed back up. It was also our only day where we spent the majority of the time walking around and getting to know the area since our appointments fell threw. The good news is that we have 2 investigators with a baptismal date.

 

Con amor,

Elder Yates

 

ps olvidé traer las fotos de la semana anterior... la próxima sera (ps forgot to bring photos of the week ... I will next week)

 

I did find one photo to send this week, but the rest will come next week... Sorry :/